


Angel

by sometimes_i_english



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 08:03:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sometimes_i_english/pseuds/sometimes_i_english
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn is Liam's guardian angel</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angel

**Author's Note:**

> So, before you read this I must say that I'm a catholic and everything in here comes from what I've learnt in this religion, if it offends you; then by all means please don't read it. It is also probably quite inaccurate because of the freedoms I took when creating Zayn's ideals and thinking process.  
> Again, I don't have a beta, so all my works are only proofread and most likely have a lot of errors in them :(

Humans are terribly troublesome beings. They have been that way since their creation and will probably stay the same until their destruction.

Humans are incredibly troublesome beings with an undeniable ability to choose exactly that which is worse for them. Zayns wonders, more often than not, why God even created them.

“To love them, of course” God would answer with a chuckle, and Zayn has to kick himself for forgetting how God is everywhere and hears everything and knows everything.

Being God must be exhausting, Zayn sighs. And by then he’s quite content with his existence as an angel.

There’s no point in time where Zayn can decidedly say he was born or created or...something. He’s not entirely sure how he became what he is, how wings sprouted from his back and a halo began to float above his head.

And that’s as far as his angel image goes, what with the tattoos covering his skin and the styled hair and sometimes, when he’s too excited or too pissed off, he tends to curse.

All Zayn remembers is opening his eyes to a great light, God’s mysterious voice and from then on, he became an angel of the lord.

“Zayn” God calls one day

“What’s up?” Zayn answers, the elders glare at him and Jesus just sits there with a pleased smile on his face. Zayn has never seen God’s face, Father God’s face that is, because he’s seen Jesus and at some point saw the pigeon the Holy Ghost sometimes forms into; but Father God’s face remains as unknown as his own past to him.

“Zayn, behave” God scolds without heat, a snicker tainting his voice “this is important”

“Sorry” a hand scrubs the back of his neck as he bows his head in an apology “Yes, my Lord?” he tries again, a teasing tone slipping into his voice. The elders keep glaring but God only sighs in fond exasperation.

“You’ve been here for a long time” God says, but Zayn wouldn’t really know, how does one measure time in Heaven? Yesterday could be any day before today, any year before that one or any era or any world (because Zayn’s been at the library learning about the many times the world has ended and began again) “I think you can have a godson now”

“A godson?” Zayn’s voice trembles in anticipation and excitement, he’s never left Heaven, the Earth is to him but a rumour from other angels and what little he can see from above the clouds of their dimension “Really?”

God chuckles at his angel’s innocence. “Yes, there’s a baby being born right now, and he seems like he could use a guardian like you”

Zayn’s eyes go wide like plates and his mouth slack, he wants to say something, maybe even thank God for the opportunity; but nerves have his tongue heavy and he can’t fight that cottony feeling that makes it impossible to form words.

Jesus smiles at him and even the elders nod their assent. And that’s the last Zayn sees from his home before his eyes are blinded by a light not different than the one from his...his what? His birth? Yeah, his birth as an angel.

Human babies are quite adorable; yes, adorable would be the word. With their round eyes and big heads and small bodies and limbs that don’t really know what to do. But somehow they remain cute, even when all they seem to do is sleep, eat, cry and poop (and sometimes throw up)

“Why can babies see angels?” Zayn wonders out loud one day, his face inches from gentle brown eyes while a pair of chubby hands tried to grab his cheeks. Babies can see angels, but angels aren’t solid and no one can really touch them.

Being an angel can sometimes be a cruel way to exist.

“Babies are pure and innocent” God provides, an eternal smile on his voice, startling even baby Liam out of the giggling fit he’d started.

But babies grow and Zayn gets used to Liam’s stare not fixing on his face anymore and his hands not reaching for his quiff. At the age of five, Liam completely stops even squinting at the place where Zayn stands, as if squinting might help him see a reflection he thought there.

So Zayn settles for whispering advice into Liam’s right ear. Mussing to himself and talking with the angels of other kids.

Liam’s just turned ten when demons begin to roam around him.

Angels can’t keep demons away. No matter how much Zayn hisses and curses and hugs Liam, in the end it’s nobody’s but Liam’s choice to listen and give in to them.

Just like any human, Liam gives in, little pranks and snide comments with his friends. A smoke and a lie at thirteen. And that one time he has sex with that brunette whose name he doesn’t even know.

Zayn can do nothing but keep whispering on Liam’s right ear.

“You know Liam” Zayn says “you’re actually a very decent kid” he smiles and pinches the boy’s cheek. Liam startles and his head whips to where Zayn is, a hand coming up to swat the air in the fashion of someone a mosquito’s buzz had been bugging.

For a moment the motion is startling, both of them staying still and breathing quietly (maybe waiting for the other to move) a couple of heartbeats pass and Liam shrugs.

“I’m starting to imagine things” he mumbles and goes back to the homework he’s been doing.

Zayn decides to not pay much attention to the incident either.

It’s unavoidable, completely and utterly unavoidable. Unless Zayn cages Liam away from the world and keeps them there until the day he dies, but that’s not a viable option (although it should). But at some point between thirteen and turning fourteen, Liam learns how to masturbate.

Learns about the appeal in other’s bodies and the mind-blowing pleasure an orgasm means; finds porn and makes new friends.

New friends that provide him with more porn and sex facts that are mostly wrong or exaggerated in the way only a prepubescent child could exaggerate them.

So Liam tries. He waits for his parents and sisters to fall asleep. He waits a little more just to be sure there are no other sounds but his laboured breathing and the hard thump of his heart. And even then he waits a little because he’s too nervous and excited to actually move.

He uses his daily body lotion to slick his hands. His body already thrumming in anticipation while his penis already stands between the small gathering of pubes he’s managed to grow. 

Zayn just sits by and watches.

The first tug is tentative, almost scared, tempting the skin and teasing his nerves. Shuddered gasps fall from the boy’s lips, the bottom one caught between his teeth in hopes to avoid any unwanted sound escaping. Minutes pass and Liam grabs at his sex with less interest than enthusiasm, pulling the foreskin and thumbing his slit; his hips stuttering without rhythm or finesse in the movement.

And just like any kid, he’s ending too fast and messy, feeling sated in the aftermath of his first orgasm. He almost falls asleep, his eyes closing when they open wide and he jumps out, his stare trained on the windowsill Zayn chose to sit at.

Yet Zayn is sure he can’t be seen, not with the way Liam’s frowning and squinting and shaking his head. Probably thinking it was a hallucination from the nerves.

Zayn wonders what the point on the act is. Sperm was meant to fertilize ovules, not to be wasted because some human felt the need to.

“You’re too harsh on them” God chastises.

“They don’t exactly help themselves” Zayn replies

“That’s why you’re there” God says “so you can help at least one of them”

And that’s it, Zayn shuts up and watches Liam grow.

As it seems, humans are quite weak when it dawns to sex. Or at least that’s what Zayn thinks because Liam keeps on masturbating, his technique getting better and his time longer.

“Not again” Zayn groans when he sees Liam strip before settling against his bed’s headboard.

“Let him be” God chuckles “he’s learning about himself”

“He’s easy prey for lust. That’s what he is” Zayn says between gritted teeth

“Then protect him” 

Most times Zayn thinks God is too lenient on humans. But that’s not his job, he’s a mere angel after all.

“Humans are so stupid” Zayn knows the shrilly voice before its owner makes an appearance.

“Fuck off Perald” he bites, because he really isn’t in the mood to deal with demons, specially Perry (who’s only purpose in eternity seems to be harass Zayn for as long as he’s set on Earth)

“tsk, tsk! Cursin again Zayn?” she chastises wiggling her finger on his face in the universal sign of a no “maybe you really are more suited to be on this side. Wings never really suited you”

It’s all noise, Zayn thinks, it’s all noise and he can ignore it. That is, until the scantily dressed demon starts rutting her body against his; her soft breasts trying to draw a reaction from a celestial body that doesn’t recognize sexual hunger.

“You’re not very bright, are you?” Zayn snorts before promptly flying away. The scowl on her face staining her sky eyes.

Liam is a good kid, of that Zayn is sure. Liam is a good kid in shitty circumstances with shitty people that don’t know how to appreciate him.

Zayn can’t feel anger, but if he could he’s sure it’d be something close to the fire burning his stomach every time Liam gets home with a new bruise and less friends. So Zayn does the only thing he can do, he prays for Liam and plants the idea of boxing lessons in his head.

(And by then it shouldn’t surprise Zayn as much as it does when Liam actually takes those lessons)

“You know Liam. God is great” he murmurs, because Liam is crying. Because Liam is crying because his dreams to be a singer seem to have become smoke with that thing on TV, and every person on his school has decided to be a shitty human being and make fun of him. “God is great because he’s almighty. You know what that means?” he musses “it means that He can do both good and bad, that He can destroy us as easily as blinking. And yet, He doesn’t. He chooses to be good and just love us”

As if on cue to defy him, Liam’s TV showcases the news; war, deaths, murder, climatic change, sickness and hunger.

“Ah” he thinks for a moment “Of course” he chuckles “God lets all this happen. But Liam, would men really rather be a puppet with no will? Haven’t men chosen to follow the easy path and forget their own souls? Haven’t men turned science into a tool to explain and justify every sin you enjoy?”

Is not like Liam can hear him, and thank God for that because Zayn realizes that his speech is probably not the most encouraging thing Liam could hear.

“Don’t worry” he whispers softly “He probably has something better for you” he lunges forward in an attempt of what he’d seen humans do, his lips colliding into the heated skin of Liam’s cheek. A current of shock runs through their skin, to tie them, to make them jump and separate.

Liam looks around frantically, tears still running free, but that dooming feeling of sadness has at least subsided.

Life goes on.

And Zayn was right.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you” chants Liam’s head. A year away from his first try and he’s been put in some sort of musical group with three other kids.

Zayn has hope. Because the four of them work great together and their voices harmonize in a way that reminds him of the angels’ choir he belonged to. 

Yet again, they loose.

They loose the competition but a producer likes them and they still get signed, a contract to make their dreams true. And destroy them in the process.

It’s surprising, the strain four teenagers have to take in order to become what they want to become. But it’s also surprising how successful and known and loved by the public they are in an incredibly short period of time.

It’s his job. Taking care of Liam, it’s his job.

Except it’s not only that. Zayn loves Liam. Zayn loves Liam in the way a Guardian Angel loves the godson he’s taken care of during their life; up until the exact point when he doesn’t.

And it’s nerve wracking and puts him in a terrible mood not to understand what’s happening inside of him. Because Zayn dislikes not knowing himself and not understanding himself. And he really doesn’t understand the prickle on his skin when Liam sings, or the sudden urge to be able to touch him, or the burning feeling in his chest whenever someone gets inside Liam’s bed.

Zayn doesn’t understand.

“You’re in love with him” Perri mocks him “you’re an angel and feel in love with a human” she cackles

“Fuck off” Zayn hisses “that’s not possible”

“Ummm keep telling yourself that” she shrugs and for once, leaves him alone

Zayn knew something was wrong the moment he got called back to Heaven. Zayn got reassurance of that feeling when he saw the elders’ stern faces and even Virgin Mary gave him a look so full of sadness only the love of a mother could muster up.

“What’s going on?” he asks, there’s a quiver to his voice that he doesn’t bother to hide “did I do something?”

“Zayn” God calls “Zayn. Your feelings for your godson have changed”

“um”

“Zayn, you know better than that” God sighs, but He’s not angry, at least Zayn thinks (or hopes) He’s not angry “No Zayn, I’m not angry. But I’m worried about you”

“Worried?” Zayn asks stupidly “Why worried?”

“Because you might want to do something about those feelings”

“Something? No, no, nothing at all” Zayn chokes out

“Angels don’t lie Zayn” God chuckles

But Zayn wasn’t lying, at least, it didn’t feel like lying to him. He really didn’t think of doing something about those feelings.

“Maybe not now Zayn. But eventually you’ll ask me to remove your wings, you’ll ask to be human again. But I couldn’t give you that”

“Again?” Zayn asks, his brow furrowed in confusion.

But his question goes unanswered and he knows better than to ask the same thing twice. “You’d become a fallen angel Zayn. You’d walk the Earth and never come back, you wouldn’t age and wouldn’t die, yet you’d still have to prevent men from sin” God explained “Do you want that Zayn? You’d be the closest to a human you can be, Liam would see you, he would touch you and he’d probably love you back”

And yes, Zayn could say yes to that and love Liam and Liam would love him back and they...

“But you wouldn’t age and Liam isn’t stupid. At some point you’ll have to leave him, and at the end of his life you’ll watch him die and it won’t be you who receives him here. Do you want that Zayn?”

It’s stupid, how Zayn would like to say that he needed time to think his answer, how everything God said actually needed to be thought and processed before giving any sort of answer. But he doesn’t, oddly as it is, he might have known what he wanted from the moment that demon pointed out his flaw.

“No” he says and this time his voice is firm, no quiver or fear “No. I want to remain Liam’s Guardian Angel”

“I see” God says, a smile heard in His voice “Then go back to him, he’ll need you on the years to come”

“He’ll need me?” Zayn doesn’t get to hear an answer for his question, in the blink of an eye he finds himself back by Liam’s side.

And Zayn stays.

He stays through the bands success; he stays and watches Liam fuck and get fucked; he stays with Liam’s gritted teeth while his bandmates fornicate in the next bunker; he stays through the band’s downfall, when public relations aren’t enough to cover the scandals, when alcohol and drugs become more important than music, when people’s ignorance hates on two of the boys for loving each other.

Zayn stays through it all. Even when Liam keeps him at arm’s length and doesn’t listen to him.

Throughout Liam’s life there’s no one who stays. Zayn wonders briefly about that, because he sees Liam hug girls and kiss boys, yet no one stays; nobody walks an aisle towards those gentle eyes.

And Liam’s life goes on, a little calmer and a lot less sinful.

It goes on until his hair in no longer on his head and his eyes can’t see anymore, yet he still swats at his right ear whenever Zayn whispers something in it.

Until the day his lungs give up and Zayn has to stay a little away while Liam’s body rests in a box, surrounded by friends and tears, placed gently inside the ground.

Zayn waits on the side.

“Ah” he smiles, extending a hand to a younger Liam. A younger Liam with gentle eyes, wide the pleasant surprise of remembering an old friend.

“Hey, hey, Zayn. Come on sleepy head, it’s time to wake up. We’ve got rehearsals remember?” a kiss is placed on Zayn’s cheek as he blinks away sleep “there you go” Liam laughs.

“mm sleepy” Zayn mumbles stretching out on their hotel bed (where were they that day? Which continent had they landed in?) “I had a weird dream” he yawns out.

“Really?” Liam asks, kissing him good morning “Tell me about it?”

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Now, the ending; the ending is quite ambiguous to me tbh, because I'm not completely sure on whether boybander Zayn had only a dream about what happened or if it actually happened and then God gave them a second opportunity at being happy together and every memory of his life as an angel appears to be a dream to Zayn.
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr here: http://sometimes-i-english.tumblr.com/ (because I'm lame and don't know yet how to put a link on the notes, sorry)


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